If you have seat assignments (and I assume you would for this route) then you don't need to validate at all as you have bought a specific seat on a specific train at a specific time. Most trains in Italy these days don't require validation. Only the slow R trains are sold without seat assignments and need to be validate.

Thanks for your replies - I have seat assignments on both trains but will probably verify both tickets at Rome just to see what happens ! help like this is much appreciated.

FYI, the validation does indeed stamp a date and time on the ticket.

While you may not need to validate your tickets for this particular trip as kybourbon mentioned, using public transport in some Italian cities (for example, the bus in Rome) may require validating your ticket when you first get on the bus. (The validation box is inside the bus.)

For tickets purchased in Italy, there is an easy to way to find out if you need to validate. The top of the ticket says "DA CONVALIDARE" if you need to validate it. The IC trains, even if you do buy seat assignment, you need to validate the train part if the ticket for the train and the reservations are separate and stapled together. I didn't think I need to do this until I saw this "DA CONVALIDARE" on my IC train ticket. I did not have time to run to the validation machine, but the car I was riding had a ticket inspector. So, I went straight to the ticket inspector before the train started moving. The inspector just said "Allora" and hand validated my ticket. The subsequent ticket inspector was satisfied with that manual validation.

When did you travel in Italy, Greg? Last year reservations became compulsory with IC tickets--no longer a separate ticket and reservation.

>>>>The IC trains, even if you do buy seat assignment,<<<<

Only R trains come without seat assignment now and those are the only tickets that require validation.

>>>if the ticket for the train and the reservations are separate and stapled together<<<<

No longer sold this way. Your IC ticket is sold with seats on the ticket now.

>>>>The top of the ticket says "DA CONVALIDARE" if you need to validate it.<<<

While that appears on R tickets, it isn't at the top on many. On my most recent R ticket (from last week), it's lower left-hand corner.

dugbell - Do you have actual tickets or do you have a reservation code to pick up your tickets when you arrive? It won't hurt to stick your ticket in the machine, but any ticket with a seat assignment does not need to be validated as the train personnel will come around and check your ticket on board.